Chapter Text
In an unfortunate turn of events, I am not a naturally gifted killer.
And by that, I mean that I’m a hunter by default. I’m a murderer all because some man in a room pulled my name off a list and put a H beside it on a whim.
I’m no killer. I’m a stupid cornered animal, growling, eyes wide. Weak. Scared. Murderer.
I’m good at it.
But call me whatever you want. I don’t care.
You learn this shit because you have to. Like, either you fall in line in class and scale great trees for the Zenith and pray that maybe they’ll give you an easy assignment, an easy job, when you turn sixteen. And then they never do. So you assassinate, when you have to. Hunt. Whatever. Yeah.
I’ll kill something this week, something that looks up at me with its big eyes, and I’ll make it to the next week to do it all over again. Sell my catch, get at most thirty percent back after the Zenith snatch away the rest of it. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, going nowhere.
I’m patient. That makes a good hunter, I know it by now. I know how to follow the motions.
Sheets of rain pour down, soaking through my thin garb completely. I don’t move. A strand of my coily dark hair falls in my eyes but I don’t even blow it away. If you were to walk by, you’d think I’m just an odd formation of the tree.
It’s much too dark and much too stormy to get anything substantial today, but it took me ages to get over here, and I refuse to go back before I find something. So, I guess I’ll just let myself get soaked.
At least hunting isn’t monitored like the other tasks. You’re just not supposed to use magic. That was never a problem. I’m not stupid.
A caterpillar crawls on my dark fingertip and I smile gently down at it as it works its way onto the edge of my leather fingerless glove. Rain continues to pour down. The poor guy’s just looking for shelter.
Carefully, I move the caterpillar under my cloak, safe from the rain. And then resume my watch.
I have one shot with the poisoned arrow so I’ve got to make my catch count. Squirrels won’t cut it. I don’t have the time to go out again, I’ll need to get the Zenith something big. They won’t accept anything else. How exhausting.
I could find something in minutes, using magic. But that’s not really an option. Magic is illegal.
Which isn’t a problem . I was there when they dragged my mother away from our home, screaming and beating her and wailing of dryad magic dryad magic there was dryad magic in this house!
I’m not going to use magic. I’m not stupid.
Past the rain, I can hear the faint whirring of the Zenith’s strange flying machines. I’ve seen them, how they’re held up without magic, without strings. And phoenixes , I wish I knew how they worked. I wish I could go up to my instructor at school and ask a question like that and actually get an answer rather than something along the lines of ‘You’ll never need to know that sort of thing, Keithia. That kind of curiosity’s going to get you killed.’
I wish I could learn everything there is to know about everything. Like, why do I know that I need to get away from the trees during a lightning storm? Why do these two materials when mixed explode? How would I make salt water potable? Why, when struck, does this muscle cry out in pain more than the other?
I wish all the time.
But I’m not stupid .
I feel darkness creep into the corners of my vision, so I decisively bite my lip, using the pain to keep myself awake. This kind of distraction didn’t happen when I first started this job. This kind of distraction didn’t happen before I was the only one left who had one.
Phoenixes. I’m tired, aren’t I?
But I don’t have time for that. I don’t have time to wonder what it would’ve been like if mom hadn’t used magic, if she was still here. Because there’s no point in whining. ‘ Oh woe is me, I’m sixteen and in the rain .’ Shut up. Do the work. At least you have a family.
Okay, maybe that’s also a toxic mindset.
Now that I’m out here, in the gross mud and actively getting soaked, I kind of regret not telling Fearáin to go to the Lizus’ house, just in case. Usually it’s standard — I get up, I tell him to be careful, if I’m gone too long, head over to the Lizus’ if I’m not back soon. It’s never happened before. But when I went to leave and I turned back…he was finally asleep . He hasn’t gotten a full night’s work of sleep since they took mom. Which was literally years ago.
So, I left him. And if I catch hypothermia out here and die a very embarrassing death, it’ll be my fault if he just sits there waiting for me.
Sometimes I wish the legal age of maturity for Woodlanders wasn’t fourteen. The Zenith don’t have much respect for Aydrians, but they at least respect our ages of adulthood, of decision making. And if I lived anywhere else on Aydira, the state would’ve declared that me and my brother would be put in foster care, and then the Lizus, our neighbors, would’ve adopted us as quickly as possible.
But I was fourteen when my mother was taken, so it would’ve been disrespectful of the Lizus to swoop in and tell me that they were our new guardians. After all, I could make my own decisions now. And I wanted to prove myself. Which, in hindsight, was very stupid.
I could’ve sent Fearáin away. I didn’t. He’s my brother. I don’t want to lose him.
Ugh. I swear, I’m so close to passing out right now.
And then I hear a flutter over my head. As if the creature could sense that I was, after several hours, beginning to get bored of the hunt.
It’s big, I can tell. Through the rain, I can’t quite make out its wingspan, but something that can be heard over this storm has to have enough to feed us for at least a week.
But it’s a bird . What if I slip up and strike down an eagle? Forget using magic, this would be worse: I’d be shunned by every woodland elf I’d meet for the rest of my lifetime. Eagles are right up there with phoenixes when it comes to protection. I know it in my blood. It’s not just because they’re rare nowadays, which is what I’m telling myself. Those things are holy. Those things are magic .
It won’t be an eagle , I tell myself, even though now I’m unnerved, Because it can’t be an eagle.
I draw my bow, pulling the arrow back skillfully. This used to hurt. My fingers used to cry out in pain when my mother guided my arm. They don’t anymore.
I can’t fail. I can’t fail him.
And I let the arrow fly. In the pouring rain. Where I can’t even see past my own eyelashes. I let it fly.
A horrifying shriek. Thump. Dead. The sound is a knife to the gut. It’s as if every tree whirls around me, hisses and snarls: MURDERER MURDERER MURDERER MURDERER MURDERER.
Sentimentality gets you killed. I want to say it back to them. But they’re just trees. And their words are just my own thoughts given identity.
I get the whole ‘kill or be killed’ vibe. And it’s real. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
“Time to go, buddy,” I whisper to the caterpillar, gently taking him from my hood and moving him to the safety of crinkle on the tree I was perched behind.
In complete darkness, I creep towards where the creature must have landed. The sound came from over here. Seeing as it’s the dead of night and there’s no way I’m getting my lamp lit in this weather, that is all I really have to go off of.
As I walk, though, the rain begins to lessen against my cloak.
I keep walking.
Actually, it’s warm. Like, actually warm. Which is also weird.
I keep walking.
And then the rain stops. I can still hear it, I just can’t feel it.
And that’s when I realize I’ve made a horrible mistake.
I’m dry and warm. The clearing is filled with a warm golden glow, a strange light twisting around from a beating nuclear center. With an arrow in its wing.
My bow clatters to the ground. I can’t tell if I’m crying or not.
I took a risk. I paid for it.
Because sitting in the center of the clearing is the most gorgeous phoenix I’ve ever seen.
Who’s supposed to be extinct. Who has my poisoned arrow in her wing. This is worse than anything that could have happened. I can’t imagine it any worse, actually.
Phoenixes haven’t been seen in generations. They’re the most sacred animal there is.
And I shot her down.
“ No .” I whisper, horrified.
Killer .